A very important part of traveling outside of where you live and, preferably, your country is the ability to learn just how people live elsewhere. Sometimes it’s just a mind expanding experience, but there are cases where you, unfortunately, discover that what you thought was normal is, at best, just a scam.
Someone asked “What's the biggest scam in America?” and people shared their thoughts and comparisons. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to add your thoughts in the comments below.
#1
The use of religion in politics.
Image credits: anon
#2
Health insurance.
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#3
The illusion that it's the greatest country in the world. No national health service. Short maternity leaves. High gun crime. And people who worship politicians like God's. And rampant institutionalised racism. And those are just the things off the top of my head.
#4
2 Party Political System.
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#5
Scientology.
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#6
Tipping instead of actually raising wages for waiters
Edit: I was referring to tipping as a necessary law. Yes people tip, but should they be the ones to ultimately blame if you haven’t been tipped and can’t survive the week? No. It’s the firms that you’re working in. They should pay you enough to not have to DEPEND on just tips to make a living.
#7
COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS. You need edition 10 for this class. They change one chapter in the book make it a new edition over price it and f**k the college kids. Always drove me nuts when I was in college.
Image credits: anon
#8
The whole health system... like... putting a fee on holding your baby after giving birth? Seriously?
Image credits: Limp-Sundae5177
#9
News as entertainment.
Image credits: anon
#10
The idea that you need to be productive all the time. It's ok to just exist.
Image credits: Weekly-Pay-6917
#11
Surprised no one mentioned ticketmaster yet.
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#12
The entire credit score system.
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#13
Insulin prices.
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#14
Bank fees. You are broke so we are going to charge you for being broke.
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#15
Paying your taxes and then never seeing a return on your investment. That's OUR money! Fix our roads, give us health care, educate our children PROPERLY, pay our teachers a living wage, RAISE UP people below the poverty line so they can live with dignity. Stop wasting 750 BILLION a year on our military.
Image credits: CharismaticAlbino
#16
The entire f*****g prison system.
#17
Those payday loan businesses. It’s predatory as s**t and it’s just legal loansharking.
Image credits: 1980pzx
#18
Mega Churches.
#19
Thinking the republicans or the democrats want the best for the average American.
#20
Trickle Down Economics.
Image credits: RusstyDog
#21
The idea that anyone can become anything — it’s simply not accurate. That’s just something the privileged and the wealthy like to tell the rubes so they don’t protest much when, inevitably, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Image credits: RandyTheRealAmerican
#22
Healthcare being tied to employment is designed to defang unions.
#23
Whatever MLM scheme my SIL was peddling at thanksgiving.
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#24
Lobbying being legal, student loans, healthcare insurance.
#25
Online charlatans that will share their "secrets" if you buy their course.
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#26
* Gestures vaguely at everything.
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#27
Bottled water.
Image credits: SortOfGettingBy
#28
Healthcare and pharma costs in US vs the rest of the world.
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#29
How we have to file our taxes correctly even though the government knows exactly how much we made every year and if we file it wrong we get penalized....
#30
That the President runs the country.
#31
Cable TV/Internet monopolies.
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#32
Credit system. Pay everything off and your score goes down? Talk about indentured servitude.
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#33
Funerals, weddings, and pretty much every other thing we blindly accept have to be insanely expensive without even thinking about it.
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#34
Health care and College loans.
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#35
Personally, joining the military. Serving my country. Getting exposed to chemicals. Dying from the inside at forty with no help from the society I served.
American dream baby.
Image credits: Neinbozobozobozo
#36
I think Student Loan servicers. For example, Navient manages Federally guaranteed debt for the US Gov in Student loans, has the IRS as their personal collection agency. They constantly, I mean CONSTANTLY f**k up to the extent they get dragged in front of Congressional Hearings, and their CEO is paid $7.7M annually.
Image credits: Firebolt164
#37
Online convenience fee for paying bills. Not every bill has it but I found it’s usually utilities and it’s BS. Not the biggest scam but something that irritates me.
#38
I have to pick only one? I think our health care system is the largest and most comically villainous of all of them but man, the list is looooong for b******t scams in this wasteland.
Image credits: anon
#39
If you work hard, you could be rich like Bill Gate, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos.
Even THEY admitted that they were at the right place, the right time.
Image credits: GhostHin
#40
"Oxycontin is not addictive".
#41
I scrolled really far and was surprised I didn't see Rent to Own stores. They sell furniture and electronics type stuff to people with bad credit who can't really afford it, let them pay a small amount weekly. If people end up paying on time and pay stuff off, they will pay 2 or 3 times more than the item is worth. If they make a payment late the item is repossessed and re sold to someone else and the first person loses all the money they paid.
There are used car dealers that do this same business model with cars too. They put GPS trackers in the car that also disable the starter. They collect $1000 down and once a payment is late they disable the car and go tow it, then sell it again and keep the downpayment. I worked at a shop that installed the trackers and these places would sell the same car to different people 5 or 6 times in a year because they kept repoing it.
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#42
Politicians.
#43
Work hard enough, and you’ll reach the American dream. To reach that, you’ll need alot of hard work, yes. But a ridiculous amount of luck as well.
#44
Home ownership.
You never actually truly own a home/land. Skip out on property taxes or even HOA fees and your home can be legally taken from you. Arguably better than renting still but it's never really 'yours'.
#45
H&R Block / Turbotax?
The Weather Channel?
Advertisements on Cable television?
Buying any kind of insurance and then they refuse to pay out a reasonable claim?
